Can't wait to hear the screams about the ACLU on this one...

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Berzerker


Exactly! This is partly why Madison added the 9th Amendment, there are just too many rights to list so the Framers focused on those rights considered the most important and most likely to come under attack by tyrants. Guns, God, and speech...these were considered the most important and the rights tyrants would target first...

But when you hear someone say we don't have a right if it isn't written in the Bill of Rights, you're listening to someone who, for whatever reason, ignores not only the 9th Amendment, but the purpose of the Constitution - to limit government by granting it specific powers. It shouldn't matter if we have a right to privacy, only what enumerated powers government has to infringe upon our privacy.

While I'm no fan of Alexander Hamilton, he did raise a valid objection to adding a Bill of Rights to the Constitution. He pointed out a BoR was not needed because the Constitution as it was written WAS a Bill of Rights - by limiting government to a handful of activities. And he added a warning and a prediction that has come true - he said if you add a BoR then there will be people who use that short list of rights to deny other rights we have using the very "logic" Bork and Limbaugh have used, i.e., if a right doesn't appear in the BoR, then it doesn't exist. How do these braintrusts respond to someone asking if that means we have no right to sleep, eat, or work when we want? These rights aren't in the Constitution either... Nor is there a government power to dictate when we sleep, eat, or work...

Remember before Roe vs Wade when abortion was a state by state issue? the 10th amendment goes right by the 9th amendment for a reason.

[Whoha]

Oh, I can dig up some Ayn Rand stuff supporting all forms of abortion(partial birth even) if you want :P. I'm fairly certain they are doing it for more sinister reasons then just the whole "woman's right to choose" mantra.

[Ramo]

A century and a half or so ago, we got a neat amendment called the 14th.

[Ben Kenobi]

No, I'm saying that the Bible is not a source for factual evidence.

You mean there never was a King in Babylonia called Nebuchadnezzar? There are plenty of historical facts in the Bible.

Even so, you still do not show why if I accept the bible at face value, why I must also accept Berzerker's argument.

Ramo:

Funny. Most prolifers I know use the 14th Amendment to defend their position.

[Mr. Harley]

Berzerker, let's agree to disagree. I suspect you are a "pure" libetarian. If you are one of those who then carefully does not take advantage of any of the programs supplied via tax money (versus those who say I'll take advantage of them anyway, since they are taking my money), you've never taken any government check via a forced program, including unemployment insurance, etc. then you have my respect.

I'll still disagree, like I disagree with a Christian Scientist - I may respect them, but I think they're nuts. I've mentioned in other posts, I take a historical (which includes economics, sociology, the military, religion, etc.) viewpoint, and I try tend to look at thinks as complex interrelations. You and I have a basic disagreement. Whether taxes are a "taking" and essentially violate certain rights, or whether they are a necessity in all modern societies.

However, beyond this difference, there lies a danger in your rhetoric, and it's a shame you cannot see how it actually does your cause harm (especially when we share a certain commonality on the social side of it). When you talk about the US as closer to the Communist Manifesto rather than the constitution, and you get people who have lived in that type of totalitarian state, or are familiar with how life was in them, they will tune you out because they know it isn't nearly that bad in the US. Yet.

I will grant you, in every case you've made, that they each have the potential to be abused and turn the US into a totalitarian state (you will note I did not say communism, the same tools that Marx and Engels talk about can be abused by any group intent on seizing power). Most people don't realize that the reason Hitler siezed power so quickly were the flaws in the post WW1 German constitution, and that what he did until after he seized control was perfectly legal.

That's why groups like the ACLU, and libetarians, Judicial Watch, Consumer's Reports, having a state as well as federal structure, the Greens, the list goes on and on, but all of them are important to maintaining our liberty. We cannot go back to the pre-1900 world (taxes and government finance) that many libetarians espouse, first of all the world is to complex, and secondly we have signed treaties forbidding that type of financing (GATT - WTO and NAFTA, to name two). I'll be happy you are out there watching. Whenever you are tempted to ratchet up the rhetoric, ask yourself one thing - will it help convert those with open minds over to my cause, or will it be so inflammatory (based on what that person perceives as reality) that they tune me out. Take a nuanced approach, and state that those things are all threats to liberty. People will listen, many of them clearly are. Ratchet the rhetoric up and compare us to communism, and they will tune you out, even if you are sure you are right.

By the way, "Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state" I skipped because the US government has been divesting, not increasing those. Whether it's shutting down one of two uranium enrichment plants (the one in KY is shutting down) closing and/or privatizing munitions production, etc. the US government produces very little. Even if you can find one or two recent examples, go back to the 1970's, and then compare it to now as a percentage of the GNP - what the US government genuinely produces. You provide NO evidence (two words "corporate capacity" do not make any kind of case) supporting your claim about the first portion of the plank, so don't say "Your "rebuttals" contain no substance. " You give me nothing to rebutt except a bald assertion. Note that on the second half of that plank, where you do provide some evidence (which I am familiar with, as an old-style conservationist) I grant you point. That's what I mean about courtesy.

Ben Kenobi nailed me politely, and I tried to respond in kind. When I switched from detail to global statement while looking over the manifesto, examine why. Saying "it's silly" is much more polite than the statement "Corporate capacity is a lazy catch phrase that means nothing, permitting you to gloss over the fact that the entire first half of plank seven has not been met...". Then to continue "You are unilaterally CHANGING the phrasing to "controlled or subsidized" when the two are very different, when people can walk away from subsidies whenever they choose (my wife and I plan to home school), etc. Your control is based on the concept that any regulation, taxation, fee, or license is total control, which means that governments since the time of Hammurabi have been fulfilling the 7th plank of the communist manifesto - which they have been doing concerning encouraging the tilling of waste lands also, for a variety of reasons. There, I've added two large paragraphs, to very little point. Or, as I said initially - it's silly.

[Imran Siddiqui]

A pro-life libertarian is like kosher pork.

Of course, the courts only pay attention to the 9th Amendment when there's enough political support. That's why we get such perversions of logic that have led to a right to kill unborn babies because that's "private" but no right to use marijuana because that isn't private.

Which shows your error with your interpretation of the 9th Amendment... which btw isn't the Court's or most legal scholar's interpretation of the 9th (abortion and privacy rights were granted under the 'penumbra' of rights surrounding the Bill of Rights). Anyway, the error is are ALL percieved rights protected under the 9th? Who decides if you have a right not stated in the Constitution? Such as abortion. Who decides if that is a right to privacy issue or not? Can I claim a right to welfare? Why not? They do so in UN Documents and in Europe.

now people like Bork and Limbaugh argue that if a right isn't enumerated, it cannot be protected and is therefore subject to government control. That conveniently ignores that Congress needs to be granted a power before it can act

Once again you totally misinterpret your opponent's argument. Bork if ANYTHING was a limited federal government guy. His arguments have been if the Constitution doesn't explicitly state something, it can't do it... even if it comes up with some natural law reason to do it. IIRC, he was also for marijuana legalization (which got him in trouble with the Senate committee).

What Bork IS saying is that the federal government cannot limit the STATES' powers using unenumerated rights. If you do so, then you can totally circumvent Congressional limitations by calling to higher law and unenumerated rights (ie, if Congress doesn't have the power to ban marijuana, why does it have the power to stop the states from doing so?).

He has argued the only right mentioned in the 2nd Amendment doesn't exist because that amendment was really about a state's "right" to have militias

So? Many legal scholars have made the remark that the right in the 2nd Amendment was a collective right preventing the federal government from taking away the states' rights in having militias. You may not agree, but you can't say that it isn't a reasonable argument.

[Imran Siddiqui]

There isn't much point in debating this if you think we own property in this country. We rent and if you don't pay the rent the state removes you from the property you allegedly own.

Berzerker has finally gone off the deep end.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

You mean there never was a King in Babylonia called Nebuchadnezzar? There are plenty of historical facts in the Bible.

Saying "there are ... facts in the Bible" is vastly different from accepting the entire work as fact.

[Ben Kenobi]

Stuie:

Mr. Fun clarified his statement.

No, I'm saying that the Bible is not a source for factual evidence.

One fact is enough to disprove this claim.

You are entirely right that one fact does not prove the whole, but Mr. Fun has already precluded that line of reasoning.

[MrFun]

Bennie, just leave your Bible fantasies to yourself.

[Theben]

I think what he was saying, Ben, is that the bible isn't an acceptable historical reference. Not that some things aren't likely of true, but it has no scholarly merit.

[MrFun]

Look, the Bible has some historical facts in it -- among other things, such as mythical/allegorical tales, and so forth.

[SpencerH]

Nobody mention :whispers: the flood :whispers: we dont want to invoke ethelred.

[MrFun]

I'm more concerned with the fvcking bitter cold temperatures now, than any fantastical flood.

[Ben Kenobi]

I think what he was saying, Ben, is that the bible isn't an acceptable historical reference. Not that some things aren't likely of true, but it has no scholarly merit.

That's not a problem with the source, but the scholars.

Scholars once believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, so why should we believe them?